Abstract

In a critical dialogue with museum and cultural heritage studies, this thesis examines the
concept of ‘intangible cultural heritage’ (ICH) and its implications for heritage theory,
policy and practice. ICH gained international recognition in the 21st century primarily
through the activities of UNESCO. Controversies and gaps inherent in the institutional
discourse on ICH, however, have led critics to question not only its assumptions but in
some cases its very raison d’être. Taking this forward, the purpose of this thesis is to
revisit the ICH discourse and explore alternative negotiations entangled in institutional
configurations, intellectual quests for parallel/ subversive heritages and new/ postmuseum
paradigms. My point of departure is a critique of the preservationist ethos of
UNESCO that has led to the construction of the official ICH narrative. Based on the idea
of the ‘politics of erasure’, I argue for the re-conceptualisation of ICH not via archival
and salvage measures, but through the reworking of the modern/ pre-modern and
presence/ absence dynamics embedded in notions of impermanence, renewal and
transformation.
Parallel to that, I trace the implications of the ICH discourse for heritage and museum
practice. As such, I conduct multi-sited fieldwork research and follow the negotiations of
ICH from the global sphere of UNESCO to the localised complexities of five museum
milieux. These are the National Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
(Wellington), the Vanuatu Cultural Centre (Port Vila), the National Museum of the
American Indian (Washington, New York, Suitland), the Horniman Museum (London)
and the Musée du Quai Branly (Paris); selected as fieldwork destinations for the diverse
perspectives they offer on ICH in the museum space and discourse. In so doing, I engage
with the idea of the new museum, not as a repository of material culture, but as
performative space for the empowerment of bottom-up, participatory museology and the
reworking of the tangible/ intangible divide. My conclusion suggests that, couched within
debates on the politics of recognition, representation and invented traditions and beyond
UNESCO’s preservationist schemata, ICH emerges as a contested and critical
intervention challenging and reinventing heritage policy and museum-work.